"Jansson suggests that everyone may have a life to which they are most suited, in which they can be most happy (maybe not completely happy, but happy enough) and that once they have found it, the only things that result from trying to be even happier are absurd and humiliating capers that return them exactly to where they were before."

For nearly 30 years, Tove Jansson, artist, creator of the Moomins and writer of wonderful fiction for adults, spent her summers on the island of Klovharu, in the Pellinki archipelago, Finland. She lived there with her partner Tuulikki Pietilä, in the only house on the island.
Klovharu was both inspiration and refuge for Jansson, and it provided the setting for her brilliant novel The Summer Book.

You can find out more about Klovharu, and about Tove Jansson herself, on this excellent website, which also includes a gallery of her artwork as well as information about her family and extensive travels.

You can have a virtual tour of Klovharu on Youtube, including a look around the cabin in which Tove and Tuulikki lived.

You can also listen to Jarvis Cocker reading the Moomin story, The Spring Tune.